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Niall Murtagh, a native of Dublin, spent his twenties hitchhiking to Istanbul, crossing the Atlantic in a homeabuilt yacht and trekking through Patagonia. But in 1986 he made an extraordinary flip and settled down in Japan as a lifer - a salaryman - in one of the most conservative companies in the East: Mitsubishi.
He smiled when he read the company rulebook but stopped smiling when he realised the rules applied to him too. He was instructed not to walk around with his hands in his pockets, shown how to choose the correct place to sit at a meeting and given the words of the company song for studying after work. He learned the etiquette for offering and receiving business cards, the staff canteen rules (take one portion of vegetables, one portion of rice and finish eating by the time the bell rings) and the regulations for the company dormitories for new recruits (regular room checks, no noise, no females).
His work impressed his bosses and he became a permanent employee “ a lifer. In time, the corporate escalator moved upwards and he was promoted to manager class “ the first westerner to reach such heights in the company inside Japan, they told him. He had realised the Japanese Dream: a traditional wife, a cosy apartment in the company housing block and a bicycle to get to work. He thought about moving on but when it came to saying sayonara, the time was never right.
With his shiny suit, his attachA case and a good dose of humour, Niall Murtagh describes a world that is an utter mystery to most westerners
ISBN 9781861977892
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Pages : 230
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